


The Black Mission

by leslielol



Series: Heirlooms [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Gen, MFU Gift Exchange, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon Solo went to prison for his crimes. In fact, he went to a few. This was the last.</p><p>(MFU Gift Exchange fic for Ingu)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ingu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu/gifts).



> Ingu, your own work is so BRILLIANT that the minute I got you for the MFU Gift Exchange I was like, WELL SHIT. So this is my humble attempt.

It was called The Wood. As the story went, parents in the nearest village told their children never to venture into the dense forests sheltering their homes, where depravity was the norm and men had lost their humanity to the thrill of violence.

This was all well and true, but only a few of the villagers had treaded so far as to discover the massive prison built beyond their protective forests. And those who did were mistaken for escaped convicts, upon which time they were relieved of a foot and locked away. 

It was that second part that never made it back into the village’s folklore, for those men were still awaiting an end to their miserable lives. 

-

It was a rare piece of construction: an actual jail rather than a labor camp. Until seeing it with his own eyes, even Illya doubted its existence. It was a genuine fortress, nothing like the fenced-in pits that--from a distance--could be mistaken for patroned farmland. And unlike the great wilderness that unfurled beyond its walls, the prison was shrewd in its use of space. 

There was plaster walling in the entryway and prisoner examination rooms--later additions to the bulk of the building, which was originally constructed largely of heavy stone and cement. It was chilly, and not just for its being in Siberia; the cold fed into those bruised psyches of its inhabitants, it refused comfort and denied life. 

The Wood housed the worst cuts of society: the brutal and violent killers who would upset even the patented misery of the camps; and the absurdly rich, made to account for their crimes but nevertheless able to weasel a mere stint rather than a complete sentencing of hard labor. A revolving door existed for those kinds of men, for even when the Soviet leadership confiscated their wealth, nothing could deny their influence. 

The two parties fed from their shared animosity, and occasionally lashed out at or oppressed the other side. The skirmishes were often deadly, and in that sense resolved themselves. Guards were a niche commodity to be bought or bribed, but only to a point. None would risk their own lives by stepping into the fray. They held more power with a rubberstamp than a sidearm. 

Illya allowed himself to be led through the prison by one such guard. He kept his gaze leveled straight ahead of him, though he registered the appraising looks sent his way. Young, fit, he was no anomaly here; many had started out that way. His lack of tattoos indicated something of a charmed life and could have put him on the side of the wealthy, but the ugly scar gnawing at the edge of his right eye spoke of violence taken, and his powerful form suggested he could give well enough in return. He was a walking contradiction. 

The guard left him with a word of warning to behave himself, but Illya paid no mind. The man had a weapon chained to his uniform, sure, but he was skinny with a crooked nose, a perpetual mouth-breather, and no genuine threat to Illya's life or purpose here.

Shrewd as any vile insult, Illya replied, knowing he'd never see the man again, “Have a nice day.” 

He heard a soft chuckle from the sole occupant of the cell, a figure dusted with the yellow light emitting from a bulb dangling from old wiring stapled to the ceiling. He was reclining on his cot and reading a paperback western--or at least pretending to--while sneaking tiny bites of a fig hidden in the heart of his palm. Illya took all this from one glance; the book had a cowboy on the front, and he could smell the fig. It was about the only sweet-smelling thing in this foul place. 

Illya ignored him. His first order of business was to secure a place in his cell for the foreseeable future. The other cot in the room was positioned longways against the front, backed against the same steel grating that held the door, and therefore open to intruders. He decided to move it. 

The cot was heavier than it looked: its simple frame was weighted with gravel and quick-dry cement so that prisoners could not hide contraband down the hollow steel piping. Still, moving it to the far wall to mirror the other bed proved no obstacle to Illya’s strength. Only, now either his head or feet would rest against the cell’s shallow toilet. 

It wasn’t a decision he labored over. 

Illya focused, instead, on the awful smell searing his nostrils, piercing his eyelids, and filling his mouth. He had not experienced it throughout the prison; rather, it seemed concentrated here--undoubtedly the cellblock, if not this particular cell. Illya squeezed at every corner of his meager bed, believing that perhaps some rodent had crawled into it to die. 

Finding none, he started to mask the stained and flattened mattress with the paper-thin set of sheets handed to him along with two pairs of ill-fitting trousers, long-sleeved shirts, and underwear. Socks were a scarcity, so he was given none. His shoes held about the same consistency, however, which was a comment Illya made during his induction into The Wood. It didn’t go unnoticed, and Illya’s gut still ached from the barrage of kicks he’d taken for his insolence. 

He hid his pain easily, even if bending low over the bed was proving a trial. Illya couldn’t altogether hide his short temper, however. 

“You doing okay there, Cowboy?” 

The inquiry came laced with disdain, which his cellmate seemed to not appreciate. His only response was a disinterested hum.

Illya continued, his tone haughty, “By the smell, I assume you've wet yourself.” 

He spared some half-formed concern that his cellmate was either insane or readying some kind of attack. Most men would be posturing, laying a claim to the space, or otherwise making themselves a nuisance. He glanced again, but the man only continued to-- _pretend,_ Illya was certain of it, now--to read. There were eyes on him--Illya knew this as sure as anything. He rolled his shoulders, made a show of his musculature in his threadbare shirt. 

If the deviant was watching, let him see. 

Illya finished dressing his bed and sat on it. He folded his arms across his chest and willed the criminal to speak. The threat of violence--as always with Illya Kuryakin--loomed large. 

“You don't belong here,” the man said in tidy Russian, the kind a man speaks formally, having learned from books but adopted an accent. Right away, Illya did not care for it. This man had another tongue, some masterwork he was intent on hiding. 

Coolly, Illya replied, “Is that not what we all say.” 

“You're calm. You wouldn't be, unless you knew you had an out.” The man pointlessly turned a page in his book; Illya had stolen his eye since the moment he arrived at the cell door, but the man wasn't in the habit of giving anyone the satisfaction of his attention. He hummed again, then spoke tonelessly: “If you mean to kill yourself, please keep it neat.” 

The man finally lowered the book and sat upright, giving Illya a chance to lay his eyes on him. His strong nose and brow suggested a man not unknown to handsomeness, though he'd surrendered it now. He had sharp blue eyes set deep inside a wary expression crowded by a thick beard and long, unwashed hair. It was then that Illya realized the stink in the room was emanating solely from this man, his cellmate. 

It must have showed on his face--his mild upset and curiosity--because the man responded with an amused smirk and a flash of teeth that were stark white against the black crowding his face. Shame was an alien aspect to him, and such a trait might as well have come bearing its own passport.

“American,” Illya accused, his lip curling. He stood, as if nationality alone was enough to instigate a fight. He switched to English, his mind telling him there was always cause to practice. “ _You_ don't belong here.”

The man’s expression opened considerably; he hadn't spoken his mother tongue in over a year. 

“So I continue to say.”

And it was as though there was another man in the room, entirely. While in Russian his voice was flat and unremarkable, English afforded it a brightness, buoyancy, and an almost musical quality.

Illya settled on three facts: One--he did not like it. Two--it was unusual. Three--it did not compromise his mission. 

The man stood to meet him, and Illya thought he had the makings of a much larger figure, something sturdy. The hard lines of his brow mimicked throughout the rest of him, carrying down through his shoulders and collarbone, the set of his hips where his waist drew in and away. Along with his broad frame and thinning middle, there was a shallowness to his face furthered by the cut of his cheekbones. Whatever his current state, the man looked unhindered by it. At the very least, he’d known slim times before. 

“Napoleon Solo,” the American said-- _Some kind of name?_ Illya thought--and extended a hand that went unmet. He had the gall to look disappointed over a lack of manners from a fellow inmate, but picked himself up again and offered an assured smile. “There isn't a maximum security prison in all of the continental United States that could hold me.”

It was more of an introduction than Illya needed, and less of one that he would have accepted, were they out in the world. As it stood, the American hardly looked well enough to cause Illya harm, let alone make a case for himself as an escape artist. That would--at the very least--require some muscle mass. 

Illya stared at him, searching for an explanation. 

“So they sent you here.” Playing along, Illya decided, may be the clearest path towards amicable silence. 

“Believe me, I saw the humor in it, too. For a time.” He slid his hands--Illya saw that the nails were neatly filed, clean compared to the rest of him--into the pockets of his blue drawstring pants, same as Illya's. He stood at ease--a thing Illya could not so much as mimic. He waited for his new Russian acquaintance to offer a name in turn, but was given none. 

“An English-speaking Russian,” Napoleon observed, leaving the term like he would, a placeholder for a name. Illya found himself enduring the same contemplative gaze he'd pinned the American under, previous. 

“I hope we are not so rare,” Illya said, his tone ice cold, “That you think I will have you talking to me.”

Napoleon seemed to remember his place, now, as one of compromise and not affinity. “No, I suppose not.” 

Napoleon returned to his earlier position, and it was like stepping back in time: he would forget that his cellmate could speak English, forget the sharp tongue he'd taken with the guard, and forget, too, that he suddenly knew more about Napoleon than perhaps anyone in all the country. 

Theirs was only a meeting; Napoleon had turned his back on far greater things. 

But the Russian surprised him by continuing to stare, wary and transfixed, on this strange, misplaced man. 

“Illya,” Illya said, because first names were simple, easy to lose in a recollection. For a genuine stint, he'd know better than to come off as agreeable. But if forging an ease with his cellmate was all his given name took, Illya was fine to share it. One less thing to concern himself with. 

Come morning, Illya awoke and joined the rest of the prison’s inmates in their morning routine. A meager breakfast, then time in common areas and their requisite tasks. Illya had accepted a position in the laundry. 

When Napoleon did not join him, Illya could not find it inside himself to care. Let the American rot as well as stink. When Napoleon did not join him for the rest of the week, and gave no impression of wanting to, Illya simply had to accept it. 

But the man did not starve, and the guards did not come. 

Napoleon Solo did not leave his cell. It was as sure as any fact that had been shared with Illya the day of his arrival. It was not to be tested, broken, or questioned. 

Illya did not like it, it was unusual, but it did not compromise his mission. 

-

Prison was a strange place to find peace, but Illya did just that. He forged an impenetrable silence around him and was able to dedicate his time to the solitary work of surveillance. There was no need to adjoin himself to any particular group; his stay--a prospective six months--was not long, and Illya would see freedom much sooner with the completion of his mission. There were others who were not so fortunate to imagine an end, and of them Illya knew to expect agitators. He carried himself tall, and was unafraid to use violence to stymie more violence. 

He compensated for his youth and good looks with a severity that stood up against both. He fashioned himself as formidable, wore steel in his eyes and iron in his fists as he walked, undaunted, every step seeking challenge. 

The more he found himself at ease operating within The Wood, the less Illya understood of his cellmate. In the common areas, Illya heard tell of Napoleon’s escapades, his smart mouth, his cunning. It seemed a far cry from the secluded man he knew, but the more Illya listened, the more he saw cause for the change. Napoleon had once made a daring escape, and was gone an entire week before turning back, arriving at the prison gates half-dead, his humor intact even if his fingers--blue from the cold--were tenuous. 

_(“You’re very clever Russians,”_ he’d said, and in his delirium had spoken in French. _“There's nowhere to run to, out here.”)_

In just a few short weeks, Illya had already come to acknowledge Napoleon’s mind for planning and execution. His ability to maneuver simple matters around him--the hand-delivery of his meals and other goods, for instance--while keeping to himself bound to his cell was impressive on its own. Maintaining a pulse on the goings-on of the prison, more so. Napoleon did not have a formal task but, instead, used his talent for languages and words to take commissions. For the other prisoners’ services towards his little way of life, Napoleon wrote love letters to their wives and girlfriends. 

He’d smiled when Illya asked after his tailormade profession, said, “If you’re asking after my services, there’s a special rate for cellmates. Double.”

In time, he answered genuinely: “It's a little unreal. Most of these men will see them again. Fewer still actually get letters in return. But the work is steady.”

Napoleon was writing well into the night, and though the light from a single bulb was of little distraction from sleep, Illya found the scratching of pen to paper strangely pleasant, and stayed up to listen. Though, he hadn't shared Napoleon’s same bemusement. “Russian love… Ah, the word--?”

“Is indiscriminate?”

Illya shot him a flat look sideways from the bed. “Abides.”

There were some less impressive aspects of his self-detainment, however. While their cell housed a toilet--neither the bowl and the tank were covered--and a sink lingering nearby, the showers were clear across the prison, inexplicably backed against the kitchen area. Illya’s thoughts quickly moved from _how long_ it had been since Napoleon had showered, to _how much longer_ he would deny the task. 

Napoleon washed with a soapy cloth every morning and evening--or as best as he could while rationing his soap--and touched every crevice, dragging the cloth until his skin was red. 

But it was like taking a nail file to a mountain; he’d never see success without the proper tools.

-

Three weeks into his sentence, Illya was jumped by five other inmates in the cafeteria, supposedly for a smart remark. (Napoleon took issue with that, later, during the tale’s telling. “A _smart_ remark? _You?_ ”) He took a few hits but laid his offenders out, pummeling their faces until they were indistinguishable from the food. 

Or so Napoleon heard. It was quite the tale, and word came to his cell from all corners of the prison that Illya was a trained fighter, a maniac, an assassin. To Napoleon’s knowledge, there was only one overarching title that held all three. 

He did not speak a word of it-- _never had the chance,_ as Napoleon did not see Illya again for some time. Because guards never came to remove his belongings, Napoleon knew he'd only gone for a stint in solitary. A week to the day, Illya was returned in the middle of the night, naked, hurled into the cell by guards. He came wearing a slew of fresh cuts and bruises but not a stitch else, and Napoleon did not need to be told some of the inmates Illya fought had a fix in with the guards. It went without saying or complaint--after this, Illya would have been wise to do the same.

Napoleon sat up, but Illya did not so much as look at him. He pulled himself up, off the ground and hunched over the sink. He drank greedily, but did not bother cleaning his face of blood or tending to his wounds.

He vomited up the water almost instantly, but drank again from the tap.

“Slower,” Napoleon said from his cot. “Little sips.”

English was their secret language--Napoleon would have never advised the younger man _of_ anything _in_ anything someone else might understand. Illya did as he was advised and paced himself. 

Napoleon could only see the bright white flesh of Illya's backside, and where it disappeared in plain view, he knew to expect mottled bruising under better light. When Illya moved, lumbered slow and heavy to his cot, it was as though entire parts of him were absent from the task.

That night and well into the following morning, while Illya slept to regain his strength and wits, Napoleon took to work letting out the hems on Illya's clothes. 

His explanation--“Whatever you're here to do, you needn't look like an overgrown child.”--baffled Illya, but he dismissed his confusion for a product of his concussion, and did not advance from his cot to challenge Napoleon on just what it was he meant to allude to. 

Napoleon nodded to the bloodied set of drawstring pants and grey top the guards had thrown in after Illya, then continued, “I'll do the others after you've washed them.” 

The promise was longterm; neither man expected Illya to move and see to the errand now, lest he forfeit the offer. To Illya, it was just another thing he could not quite comprehend.

His attempts to speak were interrupted by his stollen cheek and broken nose, leaving him sounding clouded and warm. “Wouldn't have taken you for a seamstress.”

Napoleon's eyes brightened when he corrected, “I’m a problem solver.”

-

The ordeal kept Illya in the cell for the next three days. It was time spent nursing his hurts, and--unexpectedly--partaking in Napoleon’s lifestyle. His meals inexplicably found him, marshaled into his hands in a cloth bundle, absent any utensils, but no worse for wear. It was some accomplishment, Illya realized, now that he was on the receiving end. 

He spoke around an actual word of thanks, but Napoleon’s smug look suggested he heard one all the same.

Illya huffed and turned over on his cot, seeking sleep. Napoleon’s writing--once pleasurable in its rhythms--struck him now as incessant and shrill. He turned back over, narrowed his eyes at the Napoleon where he sat, back against the cold cement wall, one knee drawn up to balance the book he was using to write against. 

Illya thought of the children-sized school desks stacked in a corner of the library, and how he might manage tearing the flat top off one of them and delivering it for Napoleon's use.

“What are you writing?”

“It's for Ivan Grekov’s girlfriend. Should I read it to you? It gets a touch racy. I have a quieter version here--for his wife.”

Something carried through Illya's chest, sharp like pain but drawn from him freely. It took both men by surprise--first the sheer sound of it, and then in its identification: laughter.

“Careful,” Napoleon warned, though he ducked his head to hide the amusement warmed-over in his cheeks, “Can't let it get out that the Adonis Assassin has a sense of humor. What would people think?”

Though he'd only given one breath to a laugh, Illya was red-faced all the same. 

“No one calls me that.”

“I could spread it around,” Napoleon said, a genuine offer. They fell back into silence--Napoleon to his letter forged in the hand of another, to the _heart_ of another, and Illya, contemplating sleep but never taking the plunge. 

For fear of being setback in his efforts, perhaps, or only to fill the void Napoleon himself seemed satisfied to occupy, Illya admitted he had an ulterior motive, here. A task. He spoke in low tones, and Napoleon heard him like cold, wet leaves underfoot. His was a soft conspiracy. 

Napoleon did not miss a beat, saying, “A mission, sounds like.” 

More than the word itself, his _tone_ betrayed his knowledge, some hands away, that Illya was a part of something larger than any revenge plot. 

“Calm down. I'm well aware of what it is men like you do.” Napoleon wrote another word to his love letter, but managed nothing further. He found Illya staring into him, his gaze hungry, his patience tested. Soundlessly, Illya rose from his cot, marched two paces, and lowered himself onto Napoleon’s bed. Aware he was being given much more than an audience, but something more akin to a _jury,_ Napoleon dutifully set the letter aside.

Now was the time for secrets. If ever he was going to tell them, to burn any needless imaginings from his reputation, he felt he was right to, here in The Wood. This moment was singular to him: being watched with such purpose and intent as this, and yet he felt so absolute in the knowledge of his own safety. Illya did not mean to harm him, he only meant to understand. He sat strict-backed and with such reverence for his subject that he did not so much as breathe adjacent to Napoleon; every molecule of his being kept itself in steady formation, angled wholly at the American prisoner. 

Napoleon felt all of this interest and, though knowing it for professional curiosity, pretended for one aching second that it was anything deeper. 

“I worked for the CIA for a time. That was the deal, you see. Put my skills as a thief to their use and serve my fifteen year sentence by serving my country. Their pitch sounded a lot more sincere, very patriotic.”

Somehow, Illya did not doubt him. Such a claim ought to echo madness, and though Napoleon had no lack of self-satisfaction for that, he seemed oddly humbled by his own story. A man only imagining such tales would not be able to conceive of their heavy pitfalls. Napoleon was, himself, drowning in them.

To answer those illusions would make any man feel taken in. When Illya tried his hand, he knew he was not being played for a fool. 

“And you refused?”

Napoleon looked at him, his gaze steady and unblinking. Momentarily, Illya wondered if Napoleon had misheard, but the truth became clear: he was drinking in the moment, for it was as great a rarity and tremendous an occasion as the _alignment of planets_ when someone believed him. 

He sailed his revelation on a single breath.

“God, no. I failed.”

Illya thought of all Napoleon had accomplished here, how he orchestrated the outside world to keep him alive. The damnable _fig_ remained the greatest mystery Illya had encountered here, perhaps anywhere. It very well could have placed first on his list of wonderings, well above any mysteries of the universe, existence, or being. How did a delicate little fruit infiltrate The Wood, only to be eaten, skin and seed and flesh and all, by none other than the great recluse Napoleon Solo?

“I do not believe that.”

“They got a year from me, then I messed up.” Napoleon's heady stare cut away, hit the floor so forcefully it may as well have crippled itself in the landing. “A couple prison breaks and the subsequent time spent evading capture earned me another five. And they didn't allow for time served.”

“Twenty years,” Illya acknowledged. For some men, that was a hundred different lives. Illya believed wholeheartedly that Napoleon could fashion himself ten times as many, if he so wished. 

“Eighteen, now.”

“Two years you've been quiet,” Illya said, knowing all the same he was being generous. A prison break hardly qualified as being quiet, even if news traveled slowly in Siberia. “They will not take you back to America?”

“It seems they've chosen to forget about me.”

“Impossible,” Illya said, his tone lost to pure wonderment. He remembered himself, then, and returned to form. “It seems they would like to.”

Napoleon smiled weakly. Faint praise was praise nonetheless, and _Christ_ did he ever miss it. 

He turned the tables, abandoning his own undoing and seeking Illya's instead. “And yourself? I can imagine you're very valuable, or half as disposable.”

“How you mean?”

“I suppose we’ll both know,” he mused, “If they really do get you out of this place.”

 _They,_ Napoleon had said. Illya did not dispute him, deciding the American knew just as much as he cared to. _“They_ did not put me here. I volunteered.”

Illya spoke with every assurance, and it killed Napoleon to hear it. He forced a smile, lost as it was to his overgrown beard. “It takes all kinds, I suppose.” 

-

It was a relief for Illya to find himself able to speak, even petty little things. He no longer felt so full with the task of holding his own self on some lone limb. Instead, he had company. He had Napoleon. 

Illya did not press Napoleon to leave his cell. His set-up was a kind of ideal: to shut oneself away from danger, even in the heady midst of it. By engineering the means of sustaining himself, even on a barebones approach, Napoleon had instigated a low-level rebellion. Food, supplies, books--they all come to him. Perhaps he surrendered his freedom more than most, even in a prison, but he limited risk to his well-being, managed his exposure.

Illya was impressed by his strong will, knowing he would be tempted to move about. But day in and day out there Napoleon sat on his bed, or paced his cell, reading or putting his tender words into the love stories of others. He'd written and accepted marriage proposals on prisoners’ behalf, he'd apologized to forlorn mothers and distant children. He lived countless lives from his dank little cell. 

But for all his unexpected talents, there were grave pitfalls. 

“I need to breathe.” Illya spoke these words in a hiss, a demand he thought right to level on his cellmate.

It was the middle of the night, but he’d come to expect Napoleon for a light sleeper. 

Napoleon’s honeyed voice sang to him: “Do you?”

“I cannot sleep. Cannot breathe. I _cannot._ You _reek.”_ Illya normally slept with his face pitted hard against the cement wall, but there was nothing the stench had not infiltrated. Their clothes, the beds, the walls--all had ceased to smell like themselves. All were an extension of Napoleon and his circumstances. 

Illya threw off his blanket and turned, glared at his cellmate from across the few short feet that separated their cots. 

_“Why do you stay here?”_

Illya could not fathom why he hadn't asked earlier. The hair, the filth, the seclusion--perhaps he'd accepted it all for an affectation. A grand performance with which to occupy his softening mind. Any man--regardless of his wit and mental stamina--could fall prey to such pitiful self-delusion. 

But Illya knew something of this smart, resourceful man. Napoleon did not feel those things independently of one another; no, they were tethered with heaps of pride. He was glad for what he'd done, though Illya was losing sight of how he was able to stand living in it.

“As opposed to…what? Living like herded cattle?” Napoleon gestured to his little library and stack of fresh towels as if they were to be taken for the finest things Illya had ever laid eyes on. “I am--at least--still doing as I please.”

“It pleases you to smell like death?” 

_“Immensely.”_

Illya buried his face into his pillow. He'd loaded it with stolen washcloths from the laundry, heavily treated with cleaning solution and left to dry. He'd hoped it would help mask Napoleon’s stench, but it only gave him a headache. 

-

Afternoon dragged by and Napoleon again found himself in Illya’s company. Illya, now prone to taking restive spells in their cell (an activity just shy of visiting with Napoleon), drew the kind of attention Napoleon had not known in some time, and was reticent to see it return. Together they watched three men stalk the cell, eyeball Illya, and walk away. Napoleon did not know why Illya hesitated.

“I believe your friends would like for you to come out and play.”

Illya kept still where he stood in the center of the room, hands curled into fists at his sides. “They are waiting for me just beyond the wall. Four of them. No doubt armed.” His lips twisted, made like they meant to shred his next admission: “My weapon is stashed in the library.”

“Looks like they know that,” Napoleon hummed. He had another letter in the works, though his pace and capacity to turn them out had slowed since Illya's arrival. Even pitched in complete silence and occupied in the dealings of his own mind, the man was a distraction. “And there's no way to the library without passing their exit. Quite the conundrum.”

Napoleon set his pen and paper aside--a thing he did now only for Illya, it seemed--and presented a tidy solution. “You should probably take this, then.”

To provide Illya with a weapon he'd crafted, Napoleon pulled it clear out of the wall. It was a fine piece of equipment: a sharpened nail lodged into a heavy stone handle, the whole of it an entire six inches, allotting even for Illya's substantial grip to take the thing and yet not obscure its worth. It was not meant for casual use--it would kill a man. No doubt, such was the reason Napoleon drew it from the cement wall just above where his head hit his pillow.

He held it out to Illya, his own touch on the point of the nail, as if he knew better than to even chance the imagery of a planned assault on Illya. “Do bring it back when you’re done. I have others, but this one is my favorite.”

“Others?” Illya asked, and his eyes searched the cell. Every chipped and uneven patch in the cement walling could hold the potential for another hidden, deadly weapon.

“Others, yes. But like I said… It's my favorite.” 

-

Napoleon proved to be a fine battle companion, of a sort. Illya came to rely on him for intelligence--who passed their cell each day, at what times.

“You're putting me in danger,” Napoleon told him one night, when he'd traded his letter writing for a spell of light reading. His new book was one pertaining to mathematical principles, and Illya did not know if that was much of an improvement from the home furnishings catalogue he'd somehow acquired the week before last.

“So, _don't tell me_ and leave both of our lives to chance?”

“I didn't say I wouldn't tell you,” Napoleon murmured. He'd lost his place reading, though it was of little matter; his concentration was split by the incessant itching of his scalp. “But you're bringing this to our doorstep, so to speak.” 

Illya watched for a time how Napoleon fought his own battles: resolutely and with no lack of patience. It was here that Illya saw what had only been whispered: a man who would sooner return to prison than surrender himself to death, even if the latter held a freedom of its own making. A man who suffered was a man who still lived. 

The offer to take Napoleon to the showers was met with unwavering silence.

“Is what you need, yes? Someone to have your back.”

“Haven't been lacking for that,” Napoleon said, and the line rendered Illya quiet, as if he hadn't guessed as much. Any man could loudly claim of his forced isolation reasons of pride and principle, but there were realities, too, to contend with. Napoleon, it seemed, had not escaped those. “It’s a kind offer.”

Illya's eyes did not leave his target. Now that the notion was out there, he would see to its making. “Are there those who mean to kill you, or merely use you?”

“Merely,” Napoleon echoed. He did not take a tone with Illya, but only by some saving grace. It was there, waiting, burning hot in the back of his throat. 

“Is death preferable, then?”

“It isn't a choice like that.” Napoleon said. In this, he was firm and sure. Then, perhaps less so, he argued: “This isn't the rest of my life. That is not a fate I will accept for myself, even if-- _should_ \--such a thing happen again. But. No, not just yet.”

“When?”

“It's not yet a part of my plan--” 

It was not his training that kept Illya’s tone level, but rather, the distinct realization that he could not command reason from a frightened man. He knew he could touch shame and from there--perhaps--inspire bravery. No one had taught him that; it was simply human nature.

In the time that he had perhaps grown more accustomed to the smell, Illya understood less and less of Napoleon’s allowance of it. 

He said, “Every day you lie here in filth is your acceptance. It mounts. Dirt under your fingernails. Lice in your hair. If those men don't kill you, the smell will. And whatever infestation you have will consume the evidence, and it will be of no matter.”

For as intently as Illya was watching Napoleon, he did not see that first punch. A haymaker, Napoleon knocked Illya off-balance, but the Russian never hit the ground. He compensated for the assault, threw out his arm and made use of their close quarters by finding a wall and propelling himself forward. He threw his weight into Napoleon’s middle, knocking the air out of him before pulling him to the cold floor. 

Napoleon threw another punch, clipping Illya’s jaw. The tussle only grew uglier from there as Napoleon raged against Illya’s more skilled movements, utilizing his entire body to fight against the Russian’s hold. It was to no avail: Napoleon was left wriggling against a unbreakable headlock. 

He was pulled partway into Illya’s lap, with only his legs free for useless thrashing until Illya saw fit to immobilize those, too. He curled his right over both of Napoleon’s, then locked his foot into place under his left. 

“You will bathe,” Illya ordered, his breath lost in the matted warmth of the back of Napoleon’s head. The stench was unbearable, and it took all of Illya’s steel will to keep from gagging. “And I will protect you.” 

They broke apart, Napoleon lifting himself off of Illya and Illya rolling to one side. The threat was gone from Illya's stance, but lingered somewhere between them. Solo remained conscious of it, and wary. 

“Not now,” Illya promised, because even he could appreciate the need for mental preparation towards such a task. “Now, I wash your sheets.” 

-

“Fighting back, I can do.”

The bed was clean, made, and Napoleon had no further means to delay them. Illya was already stood at the entrance to their cell--had been for some time, proof enough of his refusal to relent. 

“I believe you.” Illya still felt a soreness in his throat where Napoleon had thrown an elbow. In a dire situation, he did not doubt Napoleon could fend for his own. With Illya at his back, it was a certainty. Illya hoped he understood that. 

“My only… concern… is if I'm pressed to it, I will kill them. And then I would never be free.”

It wasn't fear as Illya knew it in most prisoners, where their dull days became oversaturated in any threat, real or imagined. Napoleon had a mature sense of dread that, much like his search for luxury in the dankest of gutters, was inextricably linked to the life he'd once had outside The Wood. A life he still clung to and fixated on his return, lest he wholly accept stagnation, imprisonment, and failure. 

His was an ugly skill, and uglier still to hear explained, but it was simple: Napoleon could prioritize. 

“If you're pressed to it,” Illya said, _“I_ will kill them.” 

(It would not strike Illya until much later how much of his own will he'd surrendered to his cellmate. And some time after that--still--before he considered that perhaps Napoleon had planned, manipulated, and stolen it right from under him.) 

The attention they garnered in leaving their cellblock for the showers was their first trial, and blessedly the looks and shouts thrown their way were the product of bemusement, not interest. 

Still, Illya made Napoleon wait a moment to ensure that they were not followed. 

They stripped. Napoleon was leaner than most but by no means shriveled. His body was still hard muscle, yet, and what he'd lost could be gained again and fortified, if given the chance. 

The showers were largely empty in the afternoon, but Illya chose for Napoleon a place nearest another inmate. The man--heavyset and with a hairy belly that hung like a goiter--quickly moved to a new location. Illya turned his back to Napoleon, leaving him to his task, and helming his own: the rigid surveillance of the entire shower area, its occupants and potential threats. Illya met the eyes of any who spared a glance, and though he said nothing, he was not misunderstood. 

He and Napoleon were not to be disturbed. 

The floor, cement and indistinguishable from the rest of the prison with the exception of the placement of rusty drains, was slick and cold. Napoleon glanced at his feet and found them to be a ghostly white. A stranger sight was that the the brownish liquid trailing down his legs and pooling below him. It was every bit of grit he could not cleanse from his skin, every hidden mite under his arms, all the grease from his unwashed hair. 

Stranger still was the water--hot, where what he got from the sink in his cell was nothing more than lukewarm. The sensation was life-affirming, a reminder that culture had not left this desolate place, because nothing was--at its most basest level--as decadent as a hot shower. 

He could not help the groan of pleasure that erupted from his belly and sang through his lips.

The showerheads were timed to only allow for five minutes of use; Napoleon led Illya on a round robin effort amounting to nearly half an hour. Only then was he sated, warmed through to the bone, and clean. 

The usage of razors was supervised in the community bathroom, only. That’s where Illya, stood over Solo at a sink, began to hack away at the man’s matted black hair while Solo fixated on his beard. It was not a thing Illya expected Napoleon to take to so quickly, but the shower had inspired in him a need to begin anew. The work kept Illya focused, and he did not pay much mind to how when his body touched Napoleon’s, Napoleon did not shirk away from his natural cold.

Through his effort to shear Napoleon's head, Illya found curls. 

A man came to stand behind them, and although he was older than either Illya and Napoleon by a decade, maybe two, he commanded a strength about him, as well as the lack of discipline that made the strong dangerous. 

Illya searched for the man’s gaze in the mirror, but the man had already locked his with Napoleon's. He stepped up to the sink next to theirs, establishing the same brand of dominance Illya had exercised in the showers. He pursued the slow, mundane activity of brushing his teeth. Once finished, he stooped, and collected a clump of Napoleon’s cut hair from where it had landed on the floor. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, and smiled appreciatively as though the item were gamely offered. 

While Napoleon said nothing, Illya was quick to issue the threat to send the agitator off, albeit with his prize in hand.

“Suddenly you don’t speak Russian?” Illya asked, his tone flat so as not to betray his appreciation for Napoleon's dedication to the cause: he was a few neat strokes from being clean-shaven. 

“Suddenly seems I don’t need to.” 

The sink was blackened by Illya's efforts to tidy Napoleon's hair. And, despite the sole use of an individual razor blade and no formal training, Illya was pleased with the results. Admittedly, to be unsuccessful in such a task was like signing a masterpiece in crayon; there was little he could do to distract from Napoleon's otherworldly good looks. 

He was younger and more striking than Illya first realized. Those cheeks, once presumed the shallow walls to a greater gaunt face, were in fact cut like stone, and raised high. Scrubbed clean and cut within inches of his scalp, Napoleon's hair was a glossy black, thick with curls. His face was open and youthful, his eyes brighter where they sat, the prizes in a face riddled with genetic lottery winnings. 

Illya frowned at the whole of it, like he'd been purposefully deceived. 

“You are much younger than I thought.”

“Not much older than yourself, no,” Napoleon agreed. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, the touch of his own skin intoxicating. 

“We could have gone to school together,” Illya said, and immediately regretted it for sounding awkward and unnecessary. The spark in Napoleon's eyes turned inquisitive.

“I suppose. You in Wisconsin or me in Moscow?”

Once returned to their cell, Illya took a long, demonstrative breath, just to show that he--finally--could. 

“And tomorrow? Another?”

He was being proud, true, but also generous. Napoleon wasn't so certain he had room to make plans. He touched his hair with both hands, having waited until he’d been granted the privacy of his cell before doing so. Napoleon knew the look on his face was compliment enough to Illya, and so he said nothing of it.

“How long is it you're here for?”

“My sentence is six months.” The response was automatic, unimpaired by the reason for Napoleon's asking.

“How long, really.”

And finally, Illya saw reason. “As planned… another week.”

“Then I shouldn't get used to it, should I?”

Napoleon returned to his bed, to the latest letter he was penning, and started right away into a long, loving praise for the beauty of a woman he'd never seen, her kindness he'd never experienced, her touch he'd never known. Napoleon could not help it; he was inspired. 

As he wrote, Illya watched. His heart sank and his mind corrupted their deed and found reason to question it. Illya wondered about renewed attention Napoleon might draw for his little excursion, the confidence it took. _His distinct beauty,_ if Illya stopped fooling himself. 

“Do you regret this?”

“No. Not yet.” Napoleon smiled, but it came off weak and uncertain. For as good as he felt--clean, warm, renewed--he shared Illya's concerns. 

“Two months in prison,” Napoleon calculated. Still, Illya's whole state of affairs was curious, and Napoleon would be lying if he did not think that perhaps Illya's exit was not so readily available as the younger man believed. “Did you draw the short straw?”

“I volunteered for this mission,” Illya said, apparently his only words on the matter. 

“You have something to prove, then.”

“What man does not?”

“Presumably, all those who declined being sent to Siberia.”

Illya muttered a few choice words concerning the inherent difficulty of the mission, the unknown territory, and vast pool of suspects.

“Sounds like you could use an informant.”

“Ideally, one who has left his cell in the past year.” He plucked one of Napoleon's books from his makeshift library and settled down on his own cot. 

“You have a point there,” Napoleon allowed. “I only find it interesting, you know, that for as many letters I write on behalf of the men here, I've never written for Alexander Ivanshko. Or Vlad Ryapolov. Or Sergei and Nikolai Tsepov for that matter. And yet, they see more mail than anyone.” Napoleon spared a glance across the cell to monitor Illya’s response. “So I've heard.”

Ivanshko and Ryapolov, Illya knew. Their politics and money were clear in his sights, highly suspect, but they kept their distance from controversy. 

“The Tsepov brothers are practically illiterate,” Illya spat. He sat up, turned on Napoleon. “They've never dictated to you?”

Napoleon did not so much as blink. “They do all their own chicken scratch.”

-

The next morning, while Napoleon was entertaining the idea of another shower, Illya’s mission revealed itself in a bloody massacre in the library: he killed five men, four of whom were guilty of blackmailing and plotting against Soviet Party leadership, arranging the deaths of their sons and rapes of their daughters. Two men--wealthy individuals--would pay favor to two others, the muscle, who would write instructions to those that remained on the outside.

But the fifth--he was not of their kind.

He was the man who’d stared at Napoleon in the showers.

Spattered with the blood of others, Illya managed to return to their cell during the ensuing chaos. The guards knew the offender and had fanned throughout the prison in their search. Illya's own cell was inexplicably not their first stop. Illya made haste, feeling compelled to speak with Napoleon before he was beaten himself, hauled away, and readied for transport.

Illya crossed the cell in two strides to take Napoleon by the shirtsleeve. “You escaped once. Can you do it again?”

Napoleon tore his attention from the blood splashed across Illya's face and dripping down his throat, met the young man’s gaze and held it. 

“Yes.”

The grip on his arm tightened, imprinting on Napoleon the warmth of Illya's hand, the heat of his misdeed. 

“You went West?”

“Towards the city--”

“Go East,” Illya told him. “Through forest, is river. Ice by this time. Next week. Can you do it? I will wait--” Illya thought quickly, wondered how long he could stretch his own timeline for this man. He did not even touch the question of _why._ “Three days. Thursday, Friday, Saturday.” 

A half-dozen guards stormed their cell, intent on bringing Illya into submission. Illya, his mission complete, complied. His face--awash with fresh blood born of a steel toed boot meeting his hairline--held just one expression: intent. 

As he was struck with riot batons and beaten mercilessly to the ground, shackled and dragged, Illya maintained eye contact with Napoleon. 

_East. Three days. Thursday. Friday. Saturday._

-

Napoleon met Illya again on Thursday. 

The sky overhead was endless, slate grey, and empty. It was too cold even for new snow to fall, yet all that was piled under his feet seemed forever untouched by animal, man, or machine. It gave way for Napoleon. 

In two layers of prison garb--his own and over that, the larger set belonging to Illya--and a stolen guard’s uniform, he had made his second escape from The Wood. He set out in the early morning, gone East as directed, though every shred of reason in him knew that he could be walking towards nothing. A promise, maybe, but Napoleon had never put his life in one of those.

Great fir and pine trees provided cover for his journey, but their silent presence only served to remind him of where he was not: civilization, even in its worse designs. 

He heard the river before he saw it; like the trilling of a bird, water trickled over stones and icy sheets. Just that it was there and Napoleon hadn't walked a day towards nothing made the river a welcome sight. Even better, it came accompanied by another. 

Illya was sat on a downed tree limb, a duffle bag dug out from under the snow and opened at his feet. A radio was nestled amidst a blanket and a canteen. There was not food enough for three days, but what little there was, Illya had not yet touched. 

He looked up at his guest, revealing swollen features and a small smile. 

“You left your cell.”

“Felt like a walk,” Napoleon said. “Nice, long walk.” 

He wanted to laugh, to marvel at what they'd done together with every raucous shout and unhinged holler it deserved. To have not been killed for his own crimes in The Wood, but instead deposited here and supplied with the means to stay alive, Illya was surely as important as he believed. And Napoleon, who had used every shred of his ingenuity to meet him there, was deserving of his freedom, if only for all the risk he'd paid into it. But for his chapped lips and abiding terror that nothing was so until it was _just so,_ Napoleon could only offer this: “Brought you something.” 

His hand, fisted and warm in his coat pocket, revealed itself. He produced for Illya a dark purple fig, luxurious and exquisite as anything either man had ever seen. 

Illya accepted the treat, held it in his palm a moment before taking a hunting knife to its base, and slicing it into two neat halves. Napoleon joined him on the tree limb. 

“I can get you as far as Damascus,” Illya said. “Ever been?”

“No. But it sounds lovely.”

Their ride would arrive before morning. Of Illya's promised Friday and Saturday, he'd simply shrugged, said he'd have figured out a means to stall. Napoleon would be hailed as an informant, and Illya would vouch for his usefulness to the mission. In itself, the tale showcased Napoleon's talents, but undercut Illya’s.

“When they arrive,” Illya started to say, then faltered.

Napoleon caught his meaning. “Do you think my Russian is good enough to fool them? Perhaps, French--?” 

He would not be the American who aided the Soviet cause. Their meeting was already absurd; a partnership was nothing short of insanity. 

They nibbled their figs, silently delighting in the warmth the fruit brought to their mouths if not their bodies. Illya fashioned a fire for that, and when the hour grew late and neither man found himself wanting to turn towards sleep, they easily fell into the quiet discourse they'd perfected in The Wood. Illya spoke without second guessing his right to do so, and Napoleon answered with the full force of his own worth. 

Whether it was the open air or the reality of his escape, Napoleon’s voice was endowed with new textures and richness. Illya found it far more satisfying than even the soft rhythms of his penned love letters, and he wanted to hear more.

“What will you do?”

It wasn't as though Napoleon hadn't thought about it. With the wind cutting through his layers of clothes and snow under his stolen boots, he couldn’t summon the same certainty his daydreams afforded him. The question was more real to him now that it had been--perhaps--since even before his imprisonment. Napoleon wondered if he’d even truly considered the matter after his honourable discharge from the United States Army. 

“Part of me wants to run, even if I risk being caught again.” Napoleon spoke around a swig from Illya’s canteen, a thing filled not with water, but something stronger. He quite liked this Russian outfit, he decided. 

He continued, “But. There may be a substantial amount of satisfaction to be had in turning up at a certain CIA director’s personal residence, taking tea with his wife before he returns home. Perhaps we could discuss my… Re-application.”

“Is tough decision,” Illya agreed. Surprising even himself, he said, “Is good plan.” 

“And you?”

“I am very good at what I do,” Illya said. He raised his half-eaten fig slice like he might a drink, and Napoleon met him with the canteen. “You will never see me again.” 

The trees at their backs scattered a hard white light coming upon their little camp. Illya rose to meet it, and absently discarded his fig in the snow. Napoleon watched him wave down the vehicle, a snowmobile built like a tank crossed with a stealth jet. 

All men change when their freedom is stripped from them, no matter the circumstances. Napoleon did not doubt he would ever again know the same Illya as he had met and befriended in The Wood. 

“Pity.”


End file.
